10 years ago during the expedition to the Pacific vortex between Australia and South America, considered the most remote from the nearest land, scientists drilled into the seabed a series of 100-meter wells and brought to the surface a few sediment cores. It should be clarified that the depth of the ocean in this place of about 6000 m.
What happened then can rightly be considered as a sensation: in sedimentary rocks was discovered “sleeping” micro-organisms that lived on Earth over 100 million years ago.
According to one of the leaders of the study of Yuki Morono from the University of Rhode island (USA), scientists were interested in two main questions:
- is there life in such a limited nutrient environment or it is not there?
- how long microorganisms are able to survive in conditions of almost complete absence of food?
Later they found in all the cores the oxygen, and this means that the precipitate was formed gradually, allowing oxygen to seep through the rock. Due to this the microbes alive for tens of millions of years. After extraction, the microbes were placed in a nutrient medium, and almost all of them came to life.
Given the limited resources, the metabolism of these organisms proceeds much smoother, they are much slower evolyutsioniruet, which is understandable: their energy is barely enough to maintain existence.
Source — University of Rhode Island